Physicists retrieve ‘lost’ information from quantum measurements

Typically when scientists make a measurement, they know exactly what kind of measurement they’re making, and their purpose is to obtain a measurement outcome. But in an “unrecorded measurement,” both the type of measurement and the measurement outcome are unknown.

Despite the fact that scientists do not know this information, experiments clearly show that unrecorded measurements unavoidably disturb the state of the system being measured for quantum (but not classical) systems. In classical systems, unrecorded measurements have no effect.

Although the information in unrecorded measurements appears to be completely lost, in a new paper, physicists have described a protocol that can retrieve some of the lost information.

The fact that it is possible to retrieve this lost information reveals new insight into the fundamental nature of quantum measurements, mainly by supporting the idea that quantum measurements contain both quantum and classical components.

Previously, analysis of quantum measurement theory has suggested that, while a quantum measurement starts out purely quantum, it becomes somewhat classical when the quantum state of the system being measured is reduced to a “classical-like” probability distribution. At this point, it is possible to predict the probability of the result of a quantum measurement.

As the physicists explain in the new paper, this step when a quantum state is reduced to a classical-like distribution is the traceable part of an unrecorded measurement—or in other words, it is the “lost” information that the new protocol retrieves. So the retrieval of the lost information provides evidence of the quantum-to-classical transition in a quantum measurement.

“We have demonstrated that analysis of quantum measurement is facilitated by viewing it as being made of two parts,” Michael Revzen said.

“The first, a pure quantum one, pertains to the non-commutativity of measurements’ bases. The second relates to classical-like probabilities.”

“This partitioning circumvents the ever-present polemic surrounding the whole issue of measurements and allowed us, on the basis of the accepted wisdom pertaining to classical measurements, to suggest and demonstrate that the non-commutative measurement basis may be retrieved by measuring an unrecorded measurement.”

As the physicists explain, the key to retrieving the lost information is to use quantum entanglement to entangle the system being measured by an unrecorded measurement with a second system. Since the two systems are entangled, the unrecorded measurement affects both systems. Then a control measurement made on the entangled system can extract some of the lost information.

The scientists explain that the essential role of entanglement in retrieving the lost information affirms the intimate connection between entanglement and measurements, as well as the uncertainty principle, which limits the precision with which certain measurements can be made. The scientists also note that the entire concept of retrieval has connections to quantum cryptography.

“The whole issue, however, is closely related to the problem of the combatting eavesdropper in quantum cryptography which aims, in effect, at detection of the existence of ‘unrecorded measurement’ (our aim is their identification).”

“The issue of eavesdropper detection has been under active study for some time.”

The scientists are continuing to build on the new results by showing that some of the lost information can never be retrieved, and that in other cases, it’s impossible to determine whether certain information can be retrieved.

“At present, we are trying to find a comprehensive proof that the retrieval of the measurement basis is indeed the maximal possible retrieval, as well as to pin down the precise meaning of the ubiquitous ‘undetermined’ case,” Revzen said.

“This is, within our general study of quantum measurement, arguably the most obscure subject of the foundation of quantum mechanics.”